Printers, such as ink jet or laser printers, often utilize a stack of paper, or other media stack, from which paper or other media is drawn for printing. Such printers are often equipped with a paper tray to facilitate loading paper into the printer, and/or for correctly positioning the paper for use by the printer. For example, the paper tray can be slid or otherwise removed from the printer; a stack of paper can be inserted into an appropriately sized receptacle in the tray; and then the tray can be slid or otherwise inserted into the printer. The paper tray, however, is an extra part that increases the number of parts and cost of the printer.
Other printers have been developed without paper trays. Such printers often require the user to insert a stack of paper into a slot in the printer. One problem with such printers, however, is that it is often easy for the user to insert the stack of paper incorrectly. It has been observed that often there is no visual or tactile cue to indicate how far to insert the stack of paper. For example, the user can over insert the stack of paper (“over-insertion”), resulting in multi-picks and paper jams. As another example, the user can under insert the stack of paper (“under-insertion”), resulting in failure to pick, excessive skew, or separator jams.
The printers often sequentially draw single sheets of paper from the stack of paper, or other media stack. One problem with picking sheets of paper from the stack is that more than one sheet can be picked (“multiple pick”).